MEPs back rules to help dairy farmers

Measures aim to give farmers fairer milk prices.

MEPs will next week approve measures aimed at helping dairy farmers deal with fluctuating prices and the power of large supermarket chains. 

In December, the Parliament and the Council of Ministers agreed a deal to help milk producers better prepare for the ending of quotas by 2015. The rules were requested by the Parliament in the wake of a 2009 crisis in the EU dairy sector in which milk prices fell to below the cost of production because of a surplus on the market, leaving many farmers struggling to stay in business.

James Nicholson, a UK MEP from the European Conservatives and Reformists group who drafted the Parliament’s stance on the issue, said the aim of the rules was to prevent any future decline in milk prices. “I hope this will strengthen the bargaining power of producers and transparency in the sector,” he said.

The agreement will help farmers form producer organisations or co-operatives in order to get a better deal in negotiations with dairies and supermarket chains.

The rules will ensure that the volume of milk discussed in such negotiations will not be allowed to exceed 3.5% of total EU output, in order to ensure fair competition. Volumes in such deals will also not be able to exceed 33% of total national production, or 45% of production in a member state where total annual production amounts to less than 500,000 tonnes.

The rules will oblige member states that impose contracts covering milk delivery to processors from farmers to publish the prices of such contracts. The Council of Ministers is expected to give its final backing to the legislation in March. The new regulations are expected to come into force later this year.

Growth survey

At the plenary session next week (13-16 February), MEPs are also expected to approve three reports linked to the latest annual growth survey, which sets out the EU’s priorities for economic and budgetary policy reform for the coming year.

The vote will be held after MEPs debate the surveys with José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, and after talks on the 1-2 March European Council.

One of the three reports on growth, drafted by Jean-Paul Gauzès, a French centre-right MEP, backs the Commission’s call for the creation of project bonds. Gauzès says the bonds should be used to pay for large infrastructure projects to promote jobs and growth.

Marije Cornelissen, a Dutch Green MEP, in a report on employment and social aspects of the survey, calls for the EU’s economic policy to put more emphasis on job-creation. She said the Commission’s approach was too focused on austerity and not enough on “a job-rich recovery”.

The plenary will also feature a debate and vote on a farm and fisheries trade deal between the EU and Morocco that was approved by the international trade committee in January.

The committee overturned a recommendation by José Bové, a French Green MEP, that the accord should be rejected.

The Parliament will also hold a debate with Mario Monti, Italy’s prime minister, about his government’s economic reform efforts, and will be addressed by Moncef Marzouki, the president of Tunisia.